Beijing - Saba:
Fifty-three people were killed and 62 others were injured in the earthquake that hit the Chinese Tibetan region at dawn on Tuesday, in a preliminary toll so far.
According to the Chinese news agency “Xinhua”, the Chinese authorities said that the 6.8-magnitude earthquake shook the northern Himalayan foothills in the Tibetan region, causing casualties and shaking buildings in Nepal, Bhutan and neighboring India.
For its part, the US Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale.
The China Earthquake Network Center said the epicenter was 10 km deep in Tingri, a rural Chinese province known as the northern gateway to the Everest region.
Local government officials are reaching out to nearby towns to assess the quake's impact and verify losses, Xinhua said.
The southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are subject to frequent earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.
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